Thread originator, here.
Stepping in to offer my personal criteria for determining what is and isn't psychedelic. Your mileage (definitions) may vary!
For *me*, it must have:
1) Lyrics explicitly celebrating or advocating the use of hallucinogens. "Journey to the Center of the Mind", "White Rabbit."
OR
2) The tripping experience evoked by sounds (backward tracks, disorienting EQ or mixing) *or* lyrics which sound like the singer is tripping. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Strawberry Fields Forever."
OR
3) Both 1 & 2. "Are You Experienced."
Hippie music from the late '60s isn't necessarily psychedelic. I think of Hendrix songs like "Voodoo Chile" and "Third Stone from the Sun" as less psychedelic than sci-fi crossbred with blues and jazz, respectively.
I think someone mentioned Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth", which is a folk-rock protest song documenting a real police/hippie confrontation. I wouldn't consider it psychedelic in any way.
The Mothers' "Flower Punk" is a fantastic parody of "Hey Joe" and a put-down of flower child conformity. But not psychedelic.
Ok... Continue!
And feel free to argue with me!
For me, the definition would be along those lines, but slightly ... looser.
I think a song that evokes the hippy trippy ethos of the time could at least potentially be called psychedelic. I earlier posted "The Rain, The Park, And Everything" by the Cowsills, which I very strongly associate with the Flower Power era ("I love the flower girl, she seemed so sweet and kind, she crept into my mind ... [chorus] To myyyy miiiind ... to myyyy miiiind ...
) The Flower Girl magically disappears with the rain, but "She had made me happy ... [Happy ... happy ... ...]Kinda trippy, I'd call it a psychedelic era song that embodies some of the feelings of that time. Not sure it strictly meets the letter of the law laid out in the criteria, but fits the spirit of it, for me at least. I'd kind of put their recording of "Hair" into the category as well, given the songs origins in Broadway's first naked hippies musical, and its subject matter of never cutting one's hair - a psychedelic signpost of the times ... hmm, I think Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" could almost qualify, except that it came too late.
Anyway, here's one more that is "loosely" psychedelic in my mind, with its "Oh man, that's heavy" philosophical lyrical musings
